Ten down...

Week 10...
Before it even hit Friday this week I felt like I’d burnt out from too much story hunting. I had interviewed Col for my feature article on Monday arvo (an interview which turned out so much longer than expected...so I’ve been dreading writing up the transcript... and still haven’t.) Then interviewed a guy in his support group, Mick, over the phone on Tuesday and arranged for them to meet for a photo on Friday...

Wednesday Linda emailed me to say that she wants me to write the feature for the cover of next month’s over-60s lift-out... and that I was to come up with an idea that some-how related to something going on around town during November. My deadline is Oct 23rd. Being relatively new to Townsville... I know zero people over the age of sixty...argghh... where do I start!?

On Friday I told Linda the only idea I could come up with was that it was Remembrance Day on the 11th... she loved it and gave me the number of the RSL manager to call and ask for contacts that had been in the war or were heavily involved with Remembrance Day. After much chasing up I got the numbers for several war veterans and also the woman who organises the poppy drive. I tried calling them all but no one was home... as I’ve got a little while to play with this article I put it on the back burner til next week and decided to get stuck into some of the things left over from last week.

I started with the disability employment agency story... when I rang their manager she was very busy and also a little off guard and requested that I give her some time to think about her answers... so I emailed her some questions and told her to get back to me ASAP. She is also going to provide me the contact details of one of their clients who has been happily placed in the workforce so the story will be from their point of view with her comments as a back up as to why employers should give people with a disability a go. One more thing to work on next week.

So I tried my hand at the Santa story... Jim has been the Santa Claus at one of the local shopping centres for 15 years...it was to be a career profile...but it also has a (hopefully) funny and light-hearted side to it. I wrote the story but couldn’t get the lead right... I wanted something jolly and Christmas-y (I even looked online at any Christmas carol lyrics I could use...but none fitted right)... so I left it as it was for Linda to proof and she had the same comment but told me just to think it over for the week and fix the lead next week. Another issue I’d had with this story was that I didn’t have an photograph ideas... as the shopping centre he works in (he is their maintenance assistant for the other 11 months of the year) doesn’t yet have any Christmas decorations up... so after much organising we arranged for him to take a Santa hat to work with him for the photo shoot next week.

Because it will be in a shopping centre I also had to ring their centre management to make sure it was ok for us to photograph in there... in a funny twist of events their only concern was that children might read the article and find out that Santa isn’t real. I assured them I had written the article in such a way that children would assume that Jim was more of a Santa’s helper than the real Santa...and I had even mentioned that while Jim was cleaning for the rest of the year, the real Santa was back at the North Pole. (I’m wondering what kids who still believe in Santa are doing reading the careers section of the paper!!)

I then started work on a new story that Linda had emailed me throughout the week... a local woman who started an online business that acts as a resource pool for the building industry has recently opened her website to the public. This means people who want to develop or build their property have a central location to find builders, contractors and suppliers (who have all had certification checks)... and they can even add their job to a jobs board where builders can look at plans etc and see if their interested in doing the job.... I rang the woman to interview her, wrote the story and booked in a photo time for next week. When Linda edited the story she decided that she was going to put it into the Real Estate section rather than careers... so it’ll be exciting to see my stories spread into a different area of the paper.

Linda sent me another story to do next week on Safe Work Week (designed to create awareness for safe work practices...and where workplaces across Australia aim to have one day where no one gets injured at work).... So I had to book in a photo for next week and I will go with the photographer then to interview our talent.

It was one of the ad-feats girl’s birthday today so the four of us went out for a long lunch at the pub which took a big chunk out of my day... (as did the birthday cake in the afternoon) and I really only got the two stories done but I chased up a hell of a lot of other leads, booked a thousand photos, answered a thousand emails and felt like I was continually struggling to stay on top of my ever increasing pile of work.

The bad thing is that these next three weeks are going to be absolutely hectic with uni assignments and so I’m really not going to have time to do any of the newspapers stuff at home... and it’s difficult when people continue to not get back to you with information, which seems especially prevalent when working on a Friday.

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Lesson for this week: When searching for job stories, stay away from Government agencies. I got a call during the week from my housemate saying there had been a problem when the photographer turned up to take her photo on Wednesday morning... after getting security to let him in, my housemate thought that she should probably check with her supervisor as to the appropriateness of her answers to my career profile questionnaire. He said it was fine, but said she should check with the media department, the Brisbane media boss initially said it was fine, but then passed it on to someone else, who in turn passed it on to someone else... and the whole thing turned into a bit of a mess. They ended up butchering her answers to an almost unrecognisable pulp... leaving me with very sterile media department spun quotes to work with. No wonder the government never gets anything done.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with her answers in the first place and anything even remotely inappropriate would have been edited out by me anyway... and instead they spent a whole week of to-ing and fro-ing and absolute bull###ting around to achieve something that didn’t even need to be done. It made me pretty furious. The whole point of a job story is not to insult or speak badly about an industry or institution, but instead to encourage people to think about different employment opportunities from the point of view of someone who works within the industry and enjoys what they do (and both myself and my talent had explained this to them). I understand why government agencies need to have media departments... but honestly it’s just made me so mad that now I feel like writing a really awful piece about them and how useless they are. And to think that taxpayers money was spent over the week paying these people to edit my questionnaire to the point of banal nothingness that I really have very little interesting information to work with now. Anyway... rant over. (Sorry Hume! This is exactly why I don’t have anything to do with politics... it makes me way too angry.)

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I also wanted to include an excerpt from one of the emails Linda sent me during the week:
“P.S The photos for marine services chickie from the port turned out really good so I will put her on the cover on Oct 24, plus I think her story is interesting. This week is your graphic designer, the following week your Lamberts guy and then your port story. What am I am going to do when you go!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So, not only do I have the next three Careers covers but Linda is going to miss me when I go... yay! Mission completed. Ohhh, one more thing; Linda said that over the Christmas break, while all the ad-feats staff are away... I can be EDITOR! She mentioned this a few times... so I’m pretty sure she’s not joking. However she didn’t offer to pay me... we shall see what happens I guess. Fingers crossed.

On cloud nine...

Week Nine...

By far the busiest day yet... before I even got to the office I had a list of seven or eight things to get working on...
1) Last week Linda had sent me an email she’d received on a local employment agency who works with disabled people to find jobs for them in the community... Possible careers profile.
2) Two career profiles from the Port of Townsville she had sent me...
3) During the week she had sent me the name of a man who worked as Santa at Casteltown shopping centre at Christmas time and during the week I had tracked him down and arranged to do a phone interview on Friday...
4) I had arranged a career profile on an animal behaviour and welfare lecturer at JCU
5) And another career profile on my housemate who works for the State Valuation Office, valuing land.
6) Last week Linda had told me she wants me to a major feature before I leave...about 800words.. on “an ordinary person doing extraordinary things” and I wanted to discuss my idea with her so I could start interviewing for that...
7) And by the time I got into the office she had emailed me another career profile on a graphic designer....
Busy, busy, busy!

I started with the graphic designer because Linda said she had her teed up be on next week’s cover... there were some quotes in her answers that jumped out to make the lead so the story came together pretty easily. It was then decided that she was going to be moved back a week and instead next week’s cover would be the story I did on my boyfriend’s boss...which is brilliant because whenever their sales go up my boyfriend gets a pay bonus...which means I get to buy more beautiful furniture for our house.... :)

I then went on with the Manager of Marine Services at the Port of Townsville... it came together really easily as well...
Then the newsroom called me in to do the Vox Pop for the youth lift-out because Tara was away...
It was 11.30 and I already had two stories down, so I headed out with the photographer (Suzanne again! Yay!)... this vox was to be done in Flinders Mall, and we had the “official junior photographer” with us (12 year old Lewis who began his photography career with the Bully with some flood photos at the beginning of the year and now hangs out with the photographers during school holidays to help out and learn more about photography...his camera is even bigger than mine! Jealous!)... so it took us 20 minutes (and one almost-sighting and paparazzi hunt of Emmanuel Cassimatis of Storm Financial fame) and I was back in the office to get the JCU Animal Behaviourists ‘ story done before my late lunch... I was on fire!

Linda read all the stories and was happy with them all. Yay! :)

After lunch I wrote the second Port of Townsville Story... about their hydrographical surveyor...I had put his story off because he had hardly provided any information in his questionnaire so I knew I was going to have to ring him... Ringing him turned out to be a brilliant option because he came up with some really interesting information and explained everything much better while talking than he had with writing the answers in the questionnaire... just like the Life Model story two weeks again I ended up getting his lead from our quick phone conversation and it really made the story.

Last week Linda had spoken to me about finding an idea to do my major feature on... during the week I had visited the Spinal Injury Association to see if they could suggest any of their workers or clients who might be interested in having me do a story on them... I met with a guy called Col who runs a peer support program for people with spinal injuries in north Qld. He has been a paraplegic for 31 years. He gives support and inspiration to people with spinal injuries (and their families... from Cooktown to Mackay to Mt Isa, though he's based in Townsville) while they transition from rehabilitation in Brisbane (which has the only spinal unit in Qld) back to home life in north Qld.

I thought I could do a story that covers his background, how he became a paraplegic, and how he got to where he is, how spinal injury can affect people’s families and friends etc and the challenges people face when coming home to NQ and how and why he helps with all this... Linda pitched the idea to the head editor in features and she said, “Sounds Fantastic”...so I rang Col to arrange a time to meet with him on Monday for an interview.

Last week’s bankruptcy accountant had contacted Linda through the week to see if he could view a copy of his story before it went to print. He had then emailed it back to her with changes... she showed me the changes and I thought they were pretty funny....as he had basically just changed a couple of things back into perplexing lawyer speak...and had also changed his job title back to capital letters instead of the lower case I was told to put it in (as no one but the Prime Minister has capitals.).....Oh well, whatever makes him happy.
Also, the artist from last week had cancelled her photo so I had to reschedule that.

Linda had to leave early and I still had plenty of ends to tie up on my stories as well as ring the Santa to do his interview... It was 6pm by the time I walked out the door, still with plenty on my plate for next week.

Oh one other thing I wanted to add... after my Indigenous Lecturer’s story was published last week I got this reply:

Bessie, You were very naughty, you made me sound like I matter. I want to thank you for the opportunity to take part in the process of being a Journalist. Thank you so much for making sense of my answers. I appreciate what you did. When I came to work today, my fellow lecturers all had seen the article and were very impressed. You are lovely, John

Definitely made me feel great about what I’m doing! I never want to leave ad-feats... In reality I have only worked there for nine days, but I feel like a permanent fixture (or maybe it feels like a permanent fixture to my life?) ..... and I only have 4 weeks to go :(

An eight hour office day...

Week Eight...

I have become accustomed to making sure I bring in at least two of my own career profiles to do each Friday. I know this helps the girls out a lot as they have been running low on them over the past months...but I’m also hoping Linda thinks I have initiative and direction... fingers crossed.
So my stories this week were three careers stories... One on my boyfriend’s boss. He is the owner of a fresh produce store and very successful. The most difficult part of his story was that I know him quite well so I found myself putting information in that I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t know him personally... this helped to fill in facts in gaps he had left in some answers, but I guess it would have been interesting to see how someone else would have written the story, had they not known him.
The next story was much more difficult...it was on an insolvency accountant who was a partner of a local firm... his answers were written exactly as a lawyer/accountant would write things and it was difficult to translate them into normal vernacular so the everyday person could understand. I did my best and I thought it turned out ok, though I wasn’t thrilled by my lead...or any of the story really.
The final story was an interesting one... a woman had contacted Linda earlier in the week asking if we could write a story on her... she was a nurse for about 10 years and had just started studying medicine when she gave up both to start a family. She then went to visit her aunty in Sydney for a week (whom she had..in a strange/long story... studied nursing with) and was encouraged to start painting. She took this up in her spare time and began selling paintings, starting a small business from home while she looked after her young children.
All three stories took a while to come together and the worst part was that Linda was so busy the whole day she didn’t have a chance to check anything.... but I guess I’ll find out how things went next week!

My seventh heaven...

Week Seven...

Still running off the adrenaline of last week’s windfalls I was pumped and ready to go this week.
My ‘teaser’ on the front page of Saturday’s paper turned out to be HALF the front page, it was phenomenal.. and they also ran a shorter version of my story on page four, with a note directing people to purchase Thursday's paper to read the full story in Catholic News... it was amazing.
When I got to the office in the morning (with Catholic News only being published yesterday) there was a buzz of happiness and success among the girls...
I was really keen to speak to my Catholic News buddy about how much I enjoyed reading through it and how worthwhile it all seemed once it was printed... She was stoked when I thanked her for putting me onto the Mary MacKillop story and the subsequent front page story it turned into... she was pretty excited herself, “I know! It’s the biggest thing to ever happen to Catholic News!”
“Are you kidding! It’s the biggest thing to ever happen to ME!” I laughed.
It was a great start to another very productive and enjoyable day.
Throughout the day I worked on a story for Linda about a Townsville company who won an award for getting injured workers back to work. The photos had been taken for it the week before, which meant I had a visual reference for what I was writing which doesn’t happen that often.
My next piece was a “pic-yarn” for the newsroom on 3 young siblings who had won a swag of awards at the Townsville Eisteddfod. Few changes were made to either story by Linda. (Note: I noticed when the Eisteddfod story was printed that the last three pars had been condensed and/or deleted.)
I then did a career profile that I had teed up myself, on a woman who does life modelling for arts students at JCU... it was a really interesting story and Linda thought it was great. One thing that really stood out for me with this story how the quality of information you get from your talent can change via email or phone. The Life Model had initially filled out the standard form that we email to people for career profile, but when I rang her to check a few points and arrange a photo I asked a few extra questions and the best quotes just started flowing out... I ended up grabbing my lead and some other major sections of the story from the quick phone interview instead of the questionnaire answers.
I had a look at the photos that had been taken during the week for Hume and John’s career profiles and was so excited by how great they both looked. Linda told me she had decided that Hume’s was going on the cover of next week’s guide because it was so beautiful...but I was sworn to secrecy! (Sorry Hume!)
By time it was mid afternoon (and we all usually leave around 4.30 anyway if we have all our work done)... So I filled in my afternoon with some more party book stories... two little pieces on Christmas in July and How to Make a Pinata! Party Party Party!

Six(ty million bazillion trillion) things I love about working in ad-feats...

Week Six...

One of the best things about working on a Friday in the advertising features section at the Bully is that we print the careers guide on Thursday night... this means as soon as I arrive on a Friday morning I can log on and see which stories were printed and where... and I already know what tomorrow’s section is going to look like...
Working at the end of the week also means that one of my priorities on arrival is to check all the photos that our photographer has taken for my stories earlier in the week... A lot of the time when writing my stories I do the interviews via phone or email, so I often have no idea what the talent looks like, so I love logging on to see what ideas Darren has come up with for the pics that match my stories...
This morning was particularly exciting... I have, once or twice, consoled myself with the fact that working in advertising features means I won’t really be getting a front page story (not that I’m saying I would even if I was in news, just that it’s one more obstacle in the way).. .so you can imagine my delight when I looked at last night’s printing to see that one of my career pieces had made the front of the career guide... pretty exciting!
But the day got better and better...
I spent the day writing two more career features... one on my Internship lecturer Hume and the other on my Indigenous studies lecturer John... they were both so interesting it was difficult to narrow them down to just 500 words. Linda loved them both and made only one change to the lead in Hume’s story and none in John’s.
The most difficult thing there was tracking them both down to pin down a photo appointment for the next week. But all worked out fine in the end.
With Catholic News out of the way (It has been printed and is just waiting for publication on Thursday next week) the ad-feats girls are working on their next project, the ‘party book’.... the party book is a shiny new quarter fold to be published at the end of October, which is basically full of advertorial for different party hire/catering/function/venue/planning/costume etc businesses around Townsville...with the in between bits filled in with little general party idea stories written by us.. With the other ladies cover the advertorials, Linda gave me free rein to write some short filler pieces about party games, party theme idea etc..
Mid-afternoon Linda walked back into the office laughing cheerfully...
“Guess what! I’ve just been in the news room bragging about our Mary MacKillop relative’s story... I built it up, I dragged it out, I said to (the editor)...’Mary MacKillop has no decendents, she had eight brothers and sisters, and none of them had any children... but WE found a releative...and not just anywhere, not just any relative...but guess where we found one, right here in Townsville! With kids going to Saint Josephs!”
(Ok maybe this isn’t all a direct quote...but it was something like this and it was something like this and she assumed different voices for each person speaking and it was incredibly dramatic and completely hilarious!)
There were also lots of bits with the other girls cutting in a laughing and whispering to me about how Linda loves to go into the newsroom and stir them up...
Anyway... with Linda assuming the voice of the (male) editor the next bit was something like, “’Linda this is HUGE! We’re running the story tomorrow with a teaser on the front page!’”
I was stunned...not only had I already secured what I thought was going to be the grand achievement while working in ad-feats (front of the career guide)...but BAM... My Mary MacKillop story was getting a teaser on the front page of Saturday’s paper!
(For once I was actually excited to be working a 5.30 open at the shop the next morning so I’d be first to see the paper.)
It was truly a great day at the office!